Early Wake-Ups
by public static void
Summary: On that Christmas Morning, Susan wept for a love lost long ago.


What's God if not the spark that started life  
Smile of a stranger  
Sweet music, starry skies  
Wonder, mystery, wherever my road goes  
Early wake-ups in a moving home  
scent of fresh-mown grass in the morning sun  
Open theme park gates waiting for

 _Last Ride of the Day_

Dawn was beautiful. The diverse colors were striking against each other, their shades dancing and playing in the middle of white and rosy clouds. However, Susan found the divine spectacle unmoving and bland. _Once upon a time, there was a Queen who lived in a place where the sky was always a myriad of colors, until she let go._

Standing on her balcony, she could see half the city. The tall buildings were still shining with droplets of last night's heavy rain, and the lamp post still lit gave the city a feeling of delightful calm that invaded her.

She retreated to her bedroom, closing the door of the balcony and drawing the curtains to block the light. Inside the room, the cozy feelings of London on Christmas day faded away in the dark corners barely visible behind Susan's heap of books.

They were made of leather of diverse shades of red, blue, and green. All were fairytales. Stories from other times and other places that she loved to read whenever the world became too much and she longed to escape to another reality, one where the southern radiant sun still shone among its siblings.

Susan wept.

At first, her eyes were only moist, maybe akin to the windows in a cold winter morning such as the one from that day. Soon, though, her shaking hand moved to her face, holding her mouth shut to prevent a sound from coming through. Once she sobbed and cried out the tiniest pain, she wouldn't be able to stop. It had happened before, whenever her thoughts strayed to times long past.

Sometimes she missed her siblings. High King Peter, the wise brother who always strived to protect her even when he was the one feeling down or scared. Just King Edmund, who never stopped trying to rectify his mistakes and make up for the suffering he caused them. Valiant Queen Lucy, the sweet sister who became her inspiration in many occasions. They were her tears and her muffled screams, but they were never her silence.

Oh, her silence sang a sad tune of golden chances tarnished with time and arrogance.

In the darkness, Susan felt Caspian's hands cupping her face. Her eyes were closed and her own hands clasped in her cheeks, almost feeling the warmth of the man who stole her heart in a few days.

She had been too vain, believing herself to be the greatest Queen of Narnia who would have anything at her feet with only a single thought. For a time, even if short, she thought Caspian was hers to have, and hers to love.

Her happiness didn't last.

The second time she came back to the world where everything was blurred and dulled, and gray around the edges, she let go of the memories faster than the first time. Susan saw London as a new place, a wild land to conquer the same as she had with Narnia. Bows and arrows would not work, and so Susan sought power elsewhere.

"I am so sorry, Caspian," she muttered to the phantom of a love lost long ago. "I vowed to come back to you. To find you again in the country that was promised. I lost myself and I lost you."

She didn't voice the rest of her thoughts as she went to the kitchen and prepared a cup of hot chocolate. The _I lost everyone_ that plagued her stayed in her mind, for Susan feared that speaking such words would doom her even further.

The mindless action of preparing her chocolate let her mind wander further into a world not her own, and for moments she was at the top of a tall mountain, watching clear streams and rivers across the land in front of her; those sights were soon gone from her eyes as if they never existed. Susan didn't mind; she had been entertaining the unbidden thoughts lately, finding them entrancing and deathly. They were a soft melody coming from a father after a long day, or the heart-warming food from a mother's kitchen.

"Yet this is all I have," Susan said to herself, almost falling onto her couch in front of a fire, at the side of a window which faced a dull world.

Silence.

 _Caspian's brave words._

 _Caspian's bright smiles._

Susan hated the silence and loved it at the same time. Only then she could feel the tranquility that came with the memories of a man she longed to love. For her, that was the saddest part. She was so excited to live in this world that she never thought back about him until it was too late, and the reminder of her mistakes punished her more than not having Caspian in the first place.

Would they have been happy? Would they have built an even greater Narnia, guiding their people by the path of the Lion?

Aslan called her the radiant sun, but she was nothing compared to Caspian's presence. She might have been the sun, but he was the rest of the stars combined to create an unnerving sight.

"Merry Christmas to me."

Through the only open window in her home, the sun reached the skin of her bare feet.


End file.
